This invention generally relates to the field of learning disabilities, and more particularly to the field of reading, spelling and writing learning disabilities. It has long been recognized that one of the most serious learning deficits acquired by certain students in learning to read, write and spell are those pertaining to figure ground perception, letter form discrimination, reversals, form constancy in space and left to right directionality. Numerous pupils are initially confused as to the proper spatial orientation of many letters of the alphabet, the sequences of letters found in specific types of words (for example, was and saw) and the correct form of a certain letter. New improved teaching techniques designed to shorten the learning period and to insure better success in teaching students who have the above-noted problems are constantly sought by educators.
The terms that were referred to in the preceding paragraph refer to various terms that are related to the present invention. For example, "figure ground perception" refers to the distinguishment of letters from the background; "letter form discrimination" refers to the distinguishment of one letter from another; "reversals" refer to the recognition of one word from another which uses the same letters but reversed position; "form constancy in space" refers to the fact that letters should probably be aligned in the same manner in space with respect to each other whenever they make up a word; and "directionality in space" refers to the preferred reading direction for a given language, such as from left to right for English and many other languages.
A prior teaching device that was directed to teaching problems of the general type noted above is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,723,465 which issued Nov. 15, 1955, to Esther Silverstein. This device consisted of a series of characters that were either of the cut-out type so that they could be placed into conforming or matching grooves in a board or were printed on a transparent overlay which was matched with an underlying printed character. The version of this device, which utilized matching cut-out characters and grooves in a master board, is relatively expensive to produce: and in addition, is overly complex and, therefore, can be quite confusing to students who are already experiencing confusion.
This confusion can arise from the fact that the grooves that are supplied in the board of the Silverstein device, allow for both the incorrect and correct orientation of the cut-out character. Moreover, with the Silverstein device, the student will not learn to deal with the correct orientation of each and every letter of the alphabet per se, but instead he is learning to match the letters of a given word in a letter-by-letter fashion. This approach, of course, increases the difficulty of learning to read, write and spell for the student, and it is generally not satifactory, expecially for younger children, since it is highly desirable to initially isolate the problem of letter form discrimination from the problem of character association in the building of words, and to handle the problem of letter reversals in words thereafter as a separate problem.
The transparent overlay of the Silverstein device is noteworthy, however, despite the fact that the Silverstein patent notes that this version is not the preferred embodiment of the patent. The Silverstein device contemplates a matching of a letter printed on the transparent overlay and a printed correct or incorrect versions of the character appearing on an underlying board. With the Silverstein device, however, the matching element itself was subject to misorientation because it could be placed on the pegs 30 upside down. In addition, the matching of characters as described in the patent was accomplished in a manner which did not serve to teach the reader to read the normal from left to right scan for reading English and other languages. Furthermore, the principle of learning reinforcement, which is recognized today as being a great importance in most learning activities, was not employed when the Silverstein device was used.
The present invention is designed to correct the previously mentioned learning reading, writing and spelling disabilities in less time than previous methods and with a greater measure of successes.